Carbon tax critics must offer solutions

It’s getting mighty lonely out on carbon price cliff.

One-by-one, Justin Trudeau is being abandoned. First it was the usual suspects, the conservative premiers. Then it was his only provincial Liberal ally, Andrew Furey of Newfoundland and Labrador, calling for a pause. New Democrat Wab Kinew in Manitoba wants an exemption, saying he can get to net zero without the federal levy. Then every opposition party in the House of Commons voted to push Trudeau to call a first ministers conference on carbon pricing and federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh developed a case of political cold feet and said his party would find a way to fight climate change without hurting consumers.

Overseeing it all, leading the “Axe the Tax” and “Spike the Hike” choir, was, of course, the maestro of sloganeering, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

From a political standpoint, there would appear to be little upside for Trudeau to convene premiers for a sniping session so the prime minister can defend a policy that withstood a challenge in the highest court in the land, was twice endorsed by voters and landed a rebate in most Canadians’ bank accounts Monday.

Such first ministers summits have largely become a relic of the past. Once commonplace during the years of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Brian Mulroney, the practice was effectively killed by Conservative Stephen Harper who met with premiers just twice in almost 10 years in office, both times during the economic crisis of 2008-09. He did not deign to meet with them again over his last six years in office.

Before that, Liberal Paul Martin learned the hard way what happens when premiers gang up, allowing a four-day health care marathon in 2004 become a haggle over money, which ultimately landed the premiers $41 billion over 10 years to transform health care in this country. It didn’t.

Trudeau has met the premiers, mostly in his earlier, sunnier days, but just last year on health care. He met first ministers twice in 2016 — on carbon pricing.

Yes, an affordability crisis in this country has cast carbon pricing in a vastly different light and the cast of characters has changed since that 2016 summit — but not just the characters, but the character of provincial leaders.

There was a day, not long ago, when premiers were able to rise above narrow political interests and become national leaders in their own right. In 2024 the likes of Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe are more interested in demonizing and defying the federal government in the name of “provincial sovereignty.” Ontario’s Doug Ford has been unwilling or unable to rise to the level of statesman that had been expected of past Ontario premiers.

Throw in some television cameras and sound bites tailored for social media rather than seeking substance, a symbol of today’s toxic politics, and it is extremely difficult to see anything but political posturing coming from such a meeting.

But there could be another way, even it sounds fanciful. Trudeau could agree to such a summit on the firm condition that premiers arrive with sound, visionary, cost-tested plans for combating climate change at home. Show us, dispassionately and scientifically, how results better than a carbon tax can be realized. Trade the griping and sniping from provincial capitals for the hard work to come up with substantive solutions as we face another summer of wildfires and floods.

Perhaps we have fallen too far in 2024 to ask polarized voters to listen to expert opinion and decide based on expert findings. Scientists and economists are dismissed by partisans who will describe them as elitist fabulists and who will cherry pick their own favoured findings.

But if not carbon pricing, then what?

Trudeau has a case to make, but should only make it at a summit if conditions allow for substance, a search for consensus and a plan to deal with a climate crisis that is worsening every year.

Substance over politicking in 2024? Maybe in another time in a galaxy, far, far away. Or maybe, now, in Ottawa, but only if Trudeau wins guarantees that the premiers will arrive with answers, not talking points.